Angelina Jolie, a winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, has announced that she will step down from her post as an ambassador for the UN refugee organization UNHCR after more than 20 years.
“I believe in many things the United Nations accomplishes, especially the lives it saves through emergency help,” added Jolie, 47.
She continued, “I will now work with organizations that are led by the people most directly affected by the violence and give them the loudest voice.”
According to the UNHCR, she was one of the most influential activists for refugee rights.
In an Instagram post, the Hollywood actress stated, “After more than 20 years, I am resigning today from my position with the UN refugee organization.
I am committed to working with refugees for the rest of my life because they are the people I admire most in the world.
Jolie supplied no information regarding the organizations with which she planned to collaborate.
In a separate release, the UNHCR stated that Angelina Jolie would “engage on a larger range of humanitarian and human rights problems.”
In a statement, the refugee organization said, “Jolie has worked diligently, completing more than 60 field visits to document stories of pain as well as hope and perseverance.”
Jolie, who has been in several hit films such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, has worked with the UNHCR since 2001, and in 2012 she was appointed the agency’s special envoy.
She has encountered displaced people in war-torn Ukraine, Yemen, and Burkina Faso during the past few months.
